Fresh from the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) elections, which saw Reform come a close second to Labour in the Bristol region, Isaac and Priyanka sit down this week to chat to investigative reporter Sian Norris.
Sian, who is based in the city, recently went undercover at Nigel Farage’s party’s huge rally in central Birmingham, reporting on the event for Open Democracy.
A key takeaway from the rally was that the line to the men’s toilets was far longer than the women’s – something that, as Priy points out, is “unheard of”.
So – apart from being almost exclusively white – who are these many men of Reform? And how is it getting them on board?
One disturbing thing Sian found was how the party is tweaking its narrative, between a hardline anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ+ message for activists’ consumption and a more palatable pitch for the centre, aimed squarely at being clipped up for major news channels. As the WECA elections show, that pitch is gaining increasing ground among voters – as has happened both in the US and continental Europe.
Besides feeding our hosts’ hunger for information on how to successfully go undercover without being instantly tagged as a woke metro interloper, Sian also gets into how the far right is waging war upon women’s reproductive rights. This is the subject of her 2023 book, Bodies Under Siege: How the Far-Right Attack on Reproductive Rights Went Global.
What’s actually behind this anti-abortion, anti-women agenda? And what gives Sian Norris hope? Join PJDS for an inspirational chat with one of the best in the game – and don’t forget, the show is now going live once a month in Bristol, so stay tuned…
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